All the Weird Stuff US Customs Seized in Florida This Summer

Have you ever tried to get something that you shouldn’t through customs? Frankly, I don’t know how people summon the nerve. Whether it’s illegal drugs, exotic animal meat, or counterfeit purses, people will try to smuggle just about anything. And everyone seems to have their own favourite hiding places. But if any of your favourites are on the list below, you might want to rethink your life choices.

Gizmodo has obtained a list of items confiscated by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) during the summer at the 23 different ports of entry in Florida. The list contains over 4,100 items, and while it appears some were confiscated by travellers at airports, others were coming in from commercial shipping vessels.

The two lists below are a non-comprehensive collection of things that people used to conceal their illicit items, along with the items themselves. Unfortunately, CBP didn’t match up the items that were being smuggled with the way they were being transported, but it certainly provides a fun guessing game. Did someone try to smuggle brass knuckles... in... bags of marinade? Probably not.

Methods of concealment (May 25, 2016 - August 25, 2016):

Airbags

Bags of marinade [flavour unspecified]

Baseball caps

Birthday card

Books

Box of Legos

Candles

Candy

CD case

Comic book

Computer bag

Computer part

Cooling fans

DVD case

Father’s Day card

FedEx envelope

Hair gel jars

Jamieson Omega 3-6-9 bottle

Jeans

Laptop computer bag

LED light

Lego set

Lighter as a gift

Louis Vuitton bag

Malta drink can

Metal handicraft

Mickey Mouse satchel

Mug

Napkin holder

Pair of boots

Perfume bottle

Porridge packets

Portable gas grill

Printer cartridges

Puzzle

Small toys

Socks

Talking Genius speakers

Talking Logitech speakers

Toner laser cartridge

Undergarments

So what was seized? There’s the stuff you might expect, like weed, cocaine, and prescription drugs. And the stuff you might not, like DVD box sets of the 1972-1985 British sitcom Are You Being Served. And 20 kilos of cheese. They also took something listed simply as “poem books.” Were the poems too racy for America?

Customs and Border Protection also seized cars, from a 1985 Humvee to a 1999 Rover Mini. There was also a 1998 military truck in there. And ammunition. Like, a lot of ammunition. And pork. So much fucking pork. It’s incredible how many people tried to bring pork into Florida from all over the world this summer and US Customs, for one reason or another, wasn’t having it.

I completely understand why Customs seized some of the items. But others I really don’t get. Like a single turkey sandwich? Or a lone Pokemon ball? Or, again, “poem books”. I reached out to US Customs and Border Patrol in Florida to ask about why seemingly innocuous things like “Disney Collector pins” or “Ham sandwich” were confiscated, and was told that I’d have to get those answers from the Freedom of Information office where I got this list. So (hopefully) look for a follow-up to this post in a month or two.

When I compared Florida’s list to other states (with admittedly far fewer ports of entry) from this past summer, it seems like Florida’s 4,100 seizures, for just May 25 to August 25, was pretty high. By comparison, Oregon had just 47 seizures. Utah had just one. Arkansas has zero seizures this summer, based on the results of other Freedom of Information Act requests filed by Gizmodo.

There’s also a listing that just reads “Captain America” as one of the things that was confiscated in Florida. It feels like someone should probably check on that. Did Captain America get held up at Customs in Miami, or what?

I’ve listed items that sound both strange and mundane to make the list below a fairly representative sample. And if you see Captain America on the street, ask him why he was confiscated by Customs in Florida.